Based on multiple reports, the Browns have met with Ken Whisenhunt (fired by the Cardinals last year), Mike Munchak (fired by the Titans this month) an...

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Del Rio next?

Next up, Jack Del Rio?

Based on multiple reports, the Browns have met with Ken Whisenhunt (fired by the Cardinals last year), Mike Munchak (fired by the Titans this month) and Greg Schiano (fired by the Buccaneers this months) since dumping Rob Chudzinski.

Schiano, 47, was the latest supposed candidate to surface. He piloted Tampa Bay to a 4-12 record in 2013.

Butch Davis, who spent three-plus seasons as Browns head coach, was a special adviser to Schiano.

Del Rio, 50, went 69-73 as head coach of Jacksonville from 2003-11. He is Super Bowl-bound as defensive coordinator of the Broncos.

By late Wednesday, ESPN was reporting that Mike

Pettine is one of two finalists. Multiple reports said Schiano isn't a finalist.

Munchak isn't, either, after The Associated Press reported Wednesday night he is joining the Steelers as offensive line coach.

Mike Pettine Jr.'s $30,000 bet on himself has come down to the $3 million-a-year question.

Did he tell his story well enough in a second interview Tuesday to be offered the Browns' head coaching job?

Pettine — pronounced "PET-in" — was growing restless as the audio visual coordinator and head football coach at North Penn High School in the Philadelphia suburbs in 2001.

He bugged a buddy on the Baltimore Ravens staff to ask around about any small job that might get his foot in the door. Lucky days.

Ozzie Newsome needed extra help with video and camera work needed by

coaches.

There was a catch: Pettine, in his mid-30s, had a wife and three kids and would be cutting his salary in half to $30,000.

He took the plunge, climbed the ladder, and spent Tuesday trying to talk his way into a dream job with Cleveland.

The title "head coach" has always been part of his reality. He was born the year his father began a 33-year run as head coach at Central Bucks West in the Pennsylvania hills outside Philadelphia.

Mike Pettine Sr. was a legend by 1999, when he stepped down after winning his third straight Pennsylvania 4A state title to cap a 45-0 run. Mike Jr. was a 33-year-old head coach at North Penn.

It became an epic father-son story.

Mike Sr.'s Central Bucks team was the subject of a 1999 documentary film, "The Last Game." Mike Jr.'s '99 squad was chronicled in a show aired by ESPN.

Father and son collided twice that autumn. Mike Jr.'s team went 11-2, the losses coming to Mike Sr. in the regular season and then in the playoffs.

The following fall, the old man came out of retirement to assist Mike Jr. at North Penn.

"I was pretty hard on him," Pettine Sr. told the Newark Star-Ledger once. "With most parents who coach their kids, unfortunately, they release their frustrations on them if things don't go well.

"Your kid ends up being the whipping boy. I always tell people that if I gave him one thing, it's a thick skin."

For a while after Mike Jr. played safety for the University of Virginia, he sold insurance and coached with his dad. Then he got completely out of football. He became a foreman at Grady-White Boats, overseeing construction of hulls. In 1991, when he was 25, a lull in business led to a cut in pay.

He had begun to miss football. His last name — famous in Pennsylvania — helped him become a graduate assistant at Pitt, and then a high school head coach back in his home region.

Old Pettine had been the ultimate hands-on head coach, for years calling both the offense and the defense for Central Bucks. Young Pettine became known as an innovator, one whose ideas at times were too big for high school.

Page 2 of 2 - He began to win like the old man. By the end of his fifth year at North Penn, his record was 45-15, including five losses to his dad.

As he had done in the boat business, he yearned to escape his father's shadow. This time, he fled to the highest branch of Mike Sr.'s business.

He had no money as he settled into Baltimore, but he had personality and ambition. Rex Ryan, the Ravens' defensive line coach, took an instant liking to him.

Ryan knew all about growing up with a famous coaching dad (his is Buddy Ryan). Both of them had strong wills and a million ideas. They shared them non-stop.

By 2004, Pettine was Ryan's assistant D-line coach. In 2005, when Ryan was promoted to coordinator, Pettine got a raise and his own position group.

When Ryan went to the New York Jets as head coach in 2009, he took Pettine with him as defensive coordinator.

The money was good by then, but the shadow thing was back. One time, Peyton Manning said he wasn't sure who the Jets' defensive coordinator was, but he knew Rex Ryan was the boss and the architect.

Ryan and Pettine became like brothers. Pettine would tell Ryan things like, "Just make sure they give you full credit if we get our butts kicked."

Little brother got a chance to run his own show in 2013. Doug Marrone, the offensive whiz picked to be Buffalo's head coach, gave Pettine the keys to the Bills' defense.

One of the highlights of Pettine's football life came when his Bills beat Ryan's Jets 37-14 on Nov. 17. A month later, Buffalo knocked the Dolphins out of the playoffs with a 19-0 win.

It was a rough year overall, though. The Bills went 6-10, including a 37-24 loss at Cleveland. That makes it harder for the Browns' brass to sell Pettine as the next head coach.

On the flip side, they may see a 47-year-old leader whose time has come, a man with grit, personality and brains.

They may wonder if, given the chance, the kid can do some of what the old man got done at Central Bucks.